Baeron Thunderstaff
Head of the Thunderstaff family up until the point that he was burned at the stake by the inquisition. What he says to Fenrir when first introduced into the game: 'Be still boy, and utter not one word! Beware what you say from now on, I will explain why. It has been known by those of us who are 'gifted' in the family that the demon we gain our powers from is limited to when it can be summoned. Due to the nature of the pact our ancient ancestor forged with it, it can only visit us when a key sentence is spoke. It may then chose to visit or it may not. Yesterday afternoon I was alone in my chambers when my wife arrived from a shopping trip. We exchanged words and then something I had said allowed the demon to arrive! It was fifteen feet tall, hideous in visage and stinking of sulphur. What it said to me I cannot divulge to you, but needless to say, something dire is afoot. Your poor aunt was driven insane, but I yet remain and must carry out our masters demands. I warn you now boy to watch what you say if you wish not to be visited!' The letter he wrote to Fenrir prior to his execution: Dear Fenrir, By the time you read this, I will be dead. I traded my life, and the lives of several other powerful warlocks for yours. I hope and trust you will not waste this sacrifice. This is not the first time I have died though, and if it comes within your reach, to resurrect me, then please do so. My brother, your father, is a good and just man, but foolish in the ways of the city. Arsten II is my legitimate heir, but Shallerim will contest it. Please help guide your father when he chooses sides. For me it is no matter as long as the House of Thunderstaff stays strong. Arsten II is arrogant, proud and wasteful, but at least has a strong will. Shallerim is clever and worthy, but dull when it comes to business and unimaginative. Also, do whatever Bnurgstickslackskin asks of you. The devils now have the upper hand over us in Waterdeep, to say the least. You are now the most powerful warlock in the city since all the others have been killed, burnt or have fled. Make no mistake, Gilliard De Rosen and all the devils of the Nine Hells of Baator are now after you. Your survival, and the survival of all Thundestaffs rely on you doing as our master commands. And do not disregard the inquisition, they have pardoned you, but they will attempt to take all the family wealth by supposedly legal means. Your family will try and play them at their own game in defeating them in this though and you will certainly need to aid them with your special talents for diplomacy. I know you have not shown yourself to be up to this task, I only hope that you can call on, hitherto unseen, reserves of judgement and sense. Your Uncle Baeron Thunderstaff His speach prior to execution: You look for people to blame, for these times, some notion of the fictional infernalists you have invented to scare the people. While scarecrows dressed in rags stalk the city from the North Downs to the Dock Ward you seek to preserve something barely worth saving. In this edifice of a city are military officers destitute of military knowledge; naval officers with no idea of a ship; civil officers without a notion of affairs; brazen ecclesiastics, of the worst world worldly, with sensual eyes, loose tongues, and looser lives; all totally unfit for their several callings, all lying horribly in pretending to belong to them, but all nearly or remotely of the order of Nobility, and therefore foisted on all public employments from which anything is to be got; these are to be told off by the score and the score. People not immediately connected with the City or the State, yet equally unconnected with anything that is real, or with lives passed in travelling by any straight road to any true earthly end, are no less abundant. Clerics who make great fortunes out of dainty remedies for imaginary disorders that never existed, smile upon their courtly patients in the ante-chambers of the rich. Projectors who have discovered every kind of remedy for the little evils with which the City is touched, except the remedy of setting to work in earnest to root out a single sin, pour their distracting babble into any ears they can lay hold of. Unbelieving Sorcerers who are remodelling the world with words, and making card-towers to scale the skies with, conniving with Unbelieving Wizards who have an eye on everything wicked. Exquisite gentlemen of the finest breeding, which are at that remarkable time--and have been since--to be known by its fruits of indifference to every natural subject of human interest, are in the most exemplary state of exhaustion while outside their locked and barred windows the shambling shades of humanity lurk for a carelessly thrown crust of bread. If you want to see devils and demons Waterdeep then look to yourselves! There will be no pause to your suffering while you are whipped with switches of your own fashioning. For me it is the end, and I am beyond redemption, but by this small token, this gesture, I end my life with something profound and good. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known. Category:Dungeons and Dragons Category:NPCs Category:Waterdeep Adventures